My home is in the Gila Desert of Arizona, southeastern California, and the Sonora Desert of Mexico. I'm the only species in my genus, and in 1933 a National Monument was named for me near Tucson.

​I'm so slow growing that two years after my seed is sown, I will have reached a height of only 3¼ inches. It takes me 30 years to reach three feet, but I can live for 200 years and reach 60 feet tall. At about seven feet, my main stem, which is held upright by a concealed cylinder of woody poles, begins to put out branches. These branches then put out smaller branches, all of which closely parallel my main stem and help me balance against wind and earth movement. Nesting woodpeckers and flickers make large holes in me.

At 16 feet, I can weigh approximately 1,500 pounds because of the water I contain. My flowers appear on the upper part of my stem and branches when I'm an adult. They are white and about 4¾ inches in both width and length, with a green scaly tube, and short, spreading petals.

My fruit is red inside and out, edible, and opens spontaneously to release my seeds. It was a staple item of diet for the Papago Indians, who also fermented the juice and used it to celebrate their New Year in June.

Do you know what plant I am? 
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Carnegiea gigantea: Saguaro

Oh, this weather! Will winter never end? I really had thought that the bad cold would have been over by now, but no such luck. It looks like we’ll have one more dip into the mid 30’s this week. After that dip, the extended forecast indicates repeated dips into the 40’s through March 21, but the real cold should be over because the last average frost date for the Lafayette area is around mid-March as you can see by the map:

It has been difficult watching my poor plants covered in ice, drooping and browned by the cold. I was afraid that two citrus that I had planted within the year were lost, but I checked them last week, and I believe (hope) that they may have survived. They probably have lost a few limbs, but the trees will probably be OK. I am not doing any pruning now, even if I would love to make the ugly brown leaves and branches go away. Those ugly browns actually protect the remaining parts of the plant from the cold. So follow the AgCenter recommendations and wait until the plant puts out new green before pruning off winter-killed branches. You will be protecting your plant and, most likely, losing less of the plant than if you trimmed it up right away.

​The cole crops are doing very well with the cold. They love it. My broccoli in particular is producing beautifully. I am picking, and eating, and freezing it regularly. I will have broccoli throughout the summer. I did not plant cabbage or cauliflower, but if I had, I would expect an equally good crop from them.

After this last spattering of cold nights, you will be able to plant some of the warm weather crops, like beans, but, please do yourself and your plants a favor and wait until the soil has warmed to about 60⁰ before planting tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers; that should happen about midMarch. The air temperature may be quite warm, but the soil temperature may still be well below 60⁰. Yes, you can try to get a jump on the season by planting one or two seedlings early, but if we get any serious cold, the plants could languish and never really develop well. Waiting will insure sturdy, well-developed plants. Yes, I always try for an early tomato or pepper, but never with all of my seedlings. Sometimes it gets me that extra -early tomato, but about half the time, I lose. Risking a few is a reasonable gamble though.

Speaking of seedlings, most of mine are coming up well. I planted fourteen varieties of tomato, ranging from the reliable, I WILL get a crop, Ace, to the heirlooms and foreign seeds, like Mortgage Lifter and Japanese Trifele Black (actually from Russia), to the more modern creations, like the open-pollinated Chocolate Cherry. With this range, I should have tomatoes all season long. I follow the same idea with peppers, cucumbers and eggplant. I use a few seeds of each type to have one or two plants of many different varieties. This gives me early, mid-season and late varieties, as well as insurance in case one variety does not do well that season.

​You can put out summer squash, cantaloupe, okra, limas, cukes and corn starting in early March. Beginning the middle of March you can set out watermelon, pumpkin and collards, as well as tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, but remember that the soil temperature has to be at least 60⁰. If you stagger setting the plants out, putting a few plants out each week or 10 days, you can lengthen the harvest. My peas are doing well. Last week I went to look at them and found that the Oregon Sugar Pod II was up nicely, but the Cascadia had not sprouted at all. Since I didn’t have any more Cascadia seed, I overplanted the area with Mammoth Melting Sugar. I checked them today and all are up and doing well. This cold, warm, cold, warm weather that we have been having has the fruit trees a little confused. My apples and peaches are both blooming. If we have a good cold snap, I could lose all of the production this year. I don’t believe that the predicted cold will be low enough to be problematic though – or maybe I should say, ‘so I hope’.

For anyone who is interested, the Acadiana Permaculture Guild meeting this quarter will be held at my home on Saturday, March 1 st at 1:00 pm. Details can be found on the Guild’s FaceBook page. We will be designing a fruit tree guild and pruning fruit trees. I hope you all have luck with handling the cold this month, and next month we will have SPRING and we can go back to enjoying our gardens before the summer heat keeps us in again. Until next month, Happy Gardening!